After he’d played another stellar supporting role in a Temple victory, guard T.J. DiLeo was asked about the early rampage for the Atlantic 10 in the 2013 NCAA Tournament: Six games, six victories.

“That’s good for the league,” he said. “It’s a shame some teams are leaving.”

T.J. DiLeo, right, and Temple are one of six Atlantic 10 teams to win in the second round. That's called perfection. (AP Photo)

Uh, an inconvenient truth: Temple is one of them.

The Owls were the first one out of the pool in the current evacuation, accepting an invitation last autumn to join what was then the Big East and soon will be renamed the America 12 or whatever. This week, Xavier and Butler officially followed to join the Catholic 7 group that will gain control of the Big East brand. But for all the weeping that was done, figurative and literal, over the pending breakup of the Big East that coalesced during last week’s Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden—really, now, how many “final” Georgetown-Syracuse games can we have?—no one has cried for the Atlantic 10.

The A-10 has been around longer than the Big East. The Big East merely was an improvement on a concept pioneered in 1976 by Pitt, Rutgers, West Virginia and Penn State, among others. Only Duquesne, George Washington and UMass remain of the original group, but it’s a league that has given the basketball world Norm Nixon, Marcus Camby, Mark Macon and David West.

It sent the 1996 UMass Minutemen to the Final Four, the 1988 Temple Owls to the No. 1 ranking, John Chaney into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and John Calipari toward the forefront of current coaches. It sent them both into the headlines when Chaney challenged Calipari to a postgame fight following a mid-1990s Temple-UMass game.

But as its prime members desert the league—and as Dayton and Saint Louis long to be next to join the rebranded Big East—the current group is issuing one last grand statement on the strength of the basketball played in the Atlantic 10.

“There’s some talented teams, and now people see the A-10’s record in the tournament, that’s good for the league,” DiLeo said. “It’s something I proud of. I can say I played in the A-10 this year, and it was a really strong conference.

“The top half of the league, you’ve really got to bring your best game to even stay in the game, to compete in the game. It just really prepared us for any team we face in the tournament.”

The addition of Butler and VCU prior to this season appeared to be advancing the league closer to the richer BCS conferences. It worked out that way, but only for a year.

“With Butler coming into the league and VCU, a lot of these teams are tough,” Temple’s Scootie Randall said. “In the past, we haven't had a lot of success. So I think this is a great year for the A-10. I think we've got some great teams and some great players.”